1
I the first man, the majesty
Of creatures, Time’s tall birth,
Spring at God’s finger-touch erect,
Glorying upon earth.
Above me the blue solemn heavens,
Around, the sun, the shade,
Green, whispering, glorious wilderness,
I knew for me were made;
For me all broad Euphrates flowed
As stooping down I quaffed
Water’s triumphant glory: winds
And waves, for me they laughed.
And the first bird sang piercing sweet;
Leaves danced; the rose its new
First odour infinitely breathed
For me oh, where were you?
2
You, the first woman, who should bloom
Out of creation’s bud,
Perfect the six days’ handiwork
And show that all was good?
You were not: yet your fresh idea
Made leafier greenest shows,
Haunted the silence, something rare
Augured behind the rose.
In all things, pure streams, mountain grand,
Sky, valley, clouds that roamed,–
One awful sweet foreshadowing,–
The world to beauty homed.
And something flowerier than flowers
And dewier than dew
Foreboded uncreated Eve,
Thrilled Eden through and through.
3
The freshest of the cherubim,
When I paced forth to see
Eden in my first natal hour,–
Two angels–went with me,
Wonder and Rapture. To my soul
God’s fair works Wonder showed;
And fairer, far more glorious,
Through Rapture’s eyes they glowed.
Perfect, profound, mysterious, grand
Was all t’wixt earth and sky;
A miracle the mighty scheme,
And the chief wonder, I
Bowed, worshipping the sovereign hand,
Marvelling, full of pride;
I kinship with the glory owned,
Yet, why I knew not, sighed.
4
Joyful, sufficient to thyself,
An image of the power
That made thee go domesticate
The brute, and train the flower,
God’s gardener, upwards lift! For friends,
Companions from the sky,
Angels shall visit thee and raise
Thy soul with converse high.
Invisible or dim-perceived,
Oft in the cedar walk
Perchance at cool of eve with thee,
As friend with friend, shall talk
Thy heavenly Maker. Eden shall
No desert be, nor lack
Sublimest friendships. For whose hand
Lookest thou, lingerest back?
5
I roamed through Nature’s paradise
Tired, pensive, solitary.
Seeking you, Eve, in shapes I clothed
Cloud, water, crag, and tree.
For the whole sympathy of heaven
And earth into the mood
Seemed wrought of that divine idea,
The image I pursued.
Now through the wave diaphanous,
A Naiad to my hopes
You shone; a swimming glory rose
Showering the water drops;
The cloud wraith of your loveliness
Floated in every breeze.
Sprung on the hills an Oread;
A Dryad peered through trees.
6
‘Twas in a valley first I thrilled,
Intranced wonder, Eve,
Hints of your softer majesty,
Your sweet strength, to perceive.
From the elm’s leafy loftiness,
The poplar soaring fair,
Ash, beech, the willow’s bending grace,
The woodland goddess there
Limbed into loveliness.–I gazed,
The souls of those fair trees,
Unbarked, disbranched, and, what they were,
Shy gentle Dryades,
Approached me; calm tranquillities,
The spirits of the wood,
Shadowed my heart with peacefulness,
Hush, coolness, solitude.
7
O ye whose fair umbrageous forms,
Though softer, seem allied
To mortal, glories of the glade,
What are ye, speak! I cried.
Your sky-embowering holy shapes
In shadowy secrecy
Seem to breathe joy and peace. Ye drop
Large leafy thoughts on me.
Hovering, yet motionless, ye stand:
Speak! Language seems to start
From those soft whispering lips, like leaves
By fresh winds blown apart.
Creation’s hopeless quest I seek,
The softer Adam, bliss,
Undreamed perfection; which of you
Creation’s glory is?
8
Then one, the elm tree’s shady soul,
Rooted in loftiness
Immovable. “In my large height,
Adam, thy dream possess.
“The skyward ivy of thy thoughts
Clasping my bark, let stand
Earth fixed for ever in my shade,
Thy darkness cool and grand,
“Heights upon heights of bowery, fresh,
Soft-hanging shelter shall,
Fretted with sky-peeps, lure thee up;
And strong boughs, lest thou fall,”
“Support thee. Root thy finger’s clutch
Into my stem, this pride
Of rough-barked grandeur, shadowy grace,
Nor seek another bride.”
9
She smiled. That sovereign stature next,
The lady of the oak,
Seemed over Eden broad to stretch
Her shady arm. She spoke:
“If grandeur, not sole height, thou seek,
Thy acre-shadowing glade,
Enter this Dodonsean girth,
Millennial, undecayed.
” Here shall the eagle of thy hope
Rest wings ; here, one by one,
Thy callow aspirations fledge,
Imp pinions for the sun.
“Hyperborean doves be here
Prophetic, and when snow
Hoars nature, cut thou, Druid-like,
The immortal mistletoe.”
10
I, Adam, I, who felt you, Eve,
My halved self, other heart,
Under my rib, diviner far,
Yet like in every part,
Answered:
” Too mightily ye tower,
Too broadly do ye space
God’s roomy dim idea, for me
Your sweet glooms to embrace.
” The leafier leafiness of you,
Your whispering soul of peace,
Lies far beyond my grasp, that dusk
Of shadowy secrecies.
“Virgin to your vast grandeur cool
Remain then, solemn trees,
Image your maker’s holiness
And sway but to the breeze.”
11
Oh lady of the rugged knees,
Whose vast girth hour by hour,
Gnarled, knotted through a thousand years,
Beneath the hand of power
Swaying, the blast and hurricane
Of the creative thought
Which gloriously to quiet gloomed
Thy acre-shadowing plot
Of million whispers, still be thou
All day earth’s canopy.
Glimmering and rustling, drink all night
Dew, darkness from the sky.
God’s day of thousand years for him
Date thou, with annual bark
Ring upon ring, that he from thee
An aeon sped may mark.
12
And thou, whose soaring heights of shade,
Thick-leaved, though rough thy rind,
Must effortlessly tall have climbed
Out of the heavenly mind,
Let the low ivy round thee ring
Her thousand fingers high,
Take tremulously undismayed
Those blue peeps of the sky;
Still let the poise and grace of you
All day his thought embower,
Height by degrees ascending soft,
The placid ease of power.
Oft shall the Maker, visiting
Eden, with thee hold talk,
Thou whisper-laden majesty
Who crown’st the garden walk.
13
Around those sylvan goddesses
Awful the stillness grew.
As back into their branching glooms
The holy shapes withdrew.
Once more to leafy loveliness
They limbed; I, solitary,
Stood panged with alien beauty, lured,
Fretted, a hushed cold tree
Wishing myself. Could I so stand,
Said I, O dryads fair,
Whom the all-sapient heavenly hand
Rooted to rise in air,
In mossed contentment here would I
Anchor. A restless heart
He gave me, see, and wandering feet,
Desires that shoot and dart.
14
Vaguely dim shadowy hints of thee
Spurred me, yet I delayed
‘Twixt lofty elm and glorious oak
In that sequestered glade.
Here should her stature limb to life,
Here leaf her lovely hair,
Yet yonder on the lawn I spy
Her cheek, and eyes how fair.
Creation’s wonder, where lurks she?
I questioned ; in these bowers?
Or in that deep grass virginal,
With faces that are flowers?
As thus I lingered to be gone,
Answering my very thought,
I heard a soft still voice; it seemed
The spirit of the spot.
15
Yes, the divine soft solemn soul
Of Nature in that place,
Its genius, its embowered whole
Of earth, sky, tree and grass;
All that of loftiness had gnarled
In branching attitudes
High over-arched, that noble grove
Trained out of many moods;
In heaven’s tranquillity above,
The cold still ground below,
Its pensive self to think and breathe
Its dim self love and know;
What voiced in landscape, God’s vast peace
Just there, from depths of shade,
The woodland’s dreamy heart profound,
“Adam!” it called and said:
16
“Creation’s wonder and thy wife
Here selfed in landscape, see!
Soul of thy soul, thy fairer self,
Virgin I wait for thee.
“With hilly and encircling sweep
My solitary arms
Reach out, to fold thee to my heart,
This breezy dusk of charms.
“This leaf-stirred forest, whose fair brows
Whose heaven-deep eyes how fair
Leaned down to shadow thee, and shroud
With verdurous wealth of hair,
“Beauty, that glorious thing thou seest
Shyly, invisibly,
To wed thee waits, this maidenhood
Of greensward, tree, and sky.”
17
“No longer fan thy heart’s pent fire
That fair invisible
To find, nor with an image seek,
With a dream-face, to dwell.
“Could she be lovelier, thinkest thou,
The soft majestic she,
Than this calm glorious face of things
That smiles for ever free?
“The heart of nature, pure and warm,
Offered thee glad and near
Tranquillities of noble form
And secrecies of fear.
“Peace and pure solitude am I.
Stay 1 fairer shalt thou find
None to companion thy lone thought,
Balm, solace thy sad mind.”
18
“What shape art thou? And whence proceeds
Thy solemn voice? “I cry,”
Divine soul of this valley soft,
Who fain wouldst be my bride.
“Thy secret, shadowy charm I feel,
Like a cool finger laid
Upon my throbbing heart; thy voice
I hear my haste upbraid.
“Come forth, twilight oblivion
Undraped, and her sweet form
Show me, that lovelier self I feel
Under my heart’s rib warm.
“Thou, glorious valley, well may’st limb,
Thou forest, body forth
That splendour, fairest of God’s works,
Perfection’s sovereign worth.”
(Manmohan Ghose)
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